


murder music.

by orphan_account



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: 1 part Character Study 2 parts Crack, Anger Management, Background Poly, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Custody Arrangements, Emotional Baggage, Emotions, F/M, Fighting, High School, Inspired by Music, M/M, Multi, Robin is the 'We irritating' meme, Season/Series 01, You can Learn A Lot about Someone through Their Playlist, musical therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-29 04:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18770755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "The expression of anger is a form of rejuvenation." -- Rico Nasty, Sell Out.The Team find out that Conner Kon-El Superboy Kent fights best with a gritty, east coast female rapper blaring raspy lyrics and hard beats into his ears.Can also be read as: Conner's battle background music.





	murder music.

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just self-indulgence because I love Rico Nasty's angry music and I love Conner's little (validly) angry character. It's indulgence but it's not even that good, though. oops. I'm still keeping it up. Whatever.
> 
> (ALSO, YOU CAN /ACTUALLY/ CLICK THE LINKS IN THE PLAYLIST! you should prob open it in a new tab though.)
> 
> (SIDENOTE I friggin' hate the feature on Mood like can he GO)

KON'S WORKOUT JAM

 

 

[TRUST ISSUES](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4PLwqZulh8) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 3:20

[CHEAT CODE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1og6jfhUPxE) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:17

[B*TCH I'M NASTY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE788mo6_Mc) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 1:33

[BIG D*CK ENERGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtyHJn-WApI) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:29

[RAGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he2l1mBw2X4) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:20

[POPPIN'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOTfQ4NjIKs) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:53

[COUNTIN' UP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTz68eOL-ng) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:30

[COLD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV5XDhft6Jk) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:33

[SMACK A B*TCH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abmXvjaKq_I) [rico nasty ft. cupcakke](LYRICS%20URL) 3:19

[MOOD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJyy_stKS9c) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:04

[SANDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2zb3W2Q6Nw) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 2:17

[SPACESHIPS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76wa2wVSgdk) [rico nasty](LYRICS%20URL) 3:45

[Code by Layouttesst on LiveJournal](http://layouttesst.livejournal.com/profile)

 

* * *

 

 

“Kon-El.” 

Conner cringes upon hearing the name, cutting through his ears like blades, and he looks up at the source. 

Robin stood, in all his suited, five foot four inches of fourteen year-old glory.

“Since when?” Was Conner’s miffed reply as he took off one wireless earbud to hear what the other young hero had to say.

“Since I’ve been calling you five times,” he replies casually, “I guess super hearing can get selective. ‘Conner’ wasn’t working.”

“What’s up, then?”  He asks curiously.

“Let’s spar,” the teen practically flipped, bouncing on his toes.

Conner shrugs, not having anything else to do since the day was kind of slow, and everyone else went off to keep an eye on their respective cities. Kaldur’ahm had splashed off for a brief visit to Atlantis with Aquaman, Kid Flash was off to go ‘stretch his legs’ with his uncle—meaning Cold and Heat Wave were collaborating again—Artemis was out on her biweekly family reunion fistfight, and M’gann was with her uncle J’onn honing her martian abilities.

The cave was empty, save for the two.

So Conner agreed.

On the pad, a round ring in an arena room with zero barriers, both Superboy and Robin realize that there is nothing in between them but air and opportunity.

Perfect for two rowdy boys. And even better for bored heroes.

Conner decides to turn on his workout playlist to motivate himself. He tosses his phone to the side haphazardly, and he sees Robin make a face, clearly bothered, even behind the iconic domino mask.

“I felt the pain of that phone. Did it crack?” Robin said conversationally, as he proceeded to lunge at the bigger boy.

Robin treated Superboy something like a brick wall, jumping off him and doing all sorts of acrobatic ninja tricks reminiscent of his circus days. Robin, despite his young age, was a formidable fighter, using his speed and skills to swing kicks at him left and right; but his bird-like fight dance still didn’t negate the fact that Conner was still packing half of Superman’s DNA, so brute strength was just part of who he was.

~~**** ~~

~~**_(Hey, every day is lovely, every day is sunny!)_ ** ~~

 

So with the raspy voice of the musician yelling in his ears about having _power,_ motivating him to push _further,_ to fight _harder,_ Conner picks up the little bird and tosses him across the pad with a grunt.

Smartly, Robin uses his grappling gun to lock onto a ceiling beam and swings back to violently strike Superboy in his chest, which the human-Kryptonian hybrid grabbed and used to flip him onto the ground.

Nearly.

Robin did a petty move, pulling the half-alien’s hair to momentarily distract his hands, and Superboy audibly _oof’d_ at the sensation, ripping the boy’s hands off him. Robin kicked him, again, tenfold in the chest, but Superboy couldn’t feel shit but excitement as the song changed to another one of his favorites.

“Goodness gracious,” he recites before hitting Robin with a barrage of punches.

Robin ducked and blocked a good portion of them, and Superboy could see the shine of sweat on his brow. But the kid look equally excited to fight until he drops, which would have been disturbing if little ole Richard Grayson was any ordinary kid off the street.

Fortunately, he reminds him why he _isn’t,_ retaliating with batarangs that rip at the sides of Superboy’s shirt, making tacky slits.

He bleeds, just a tad.

The adrenaline makes a perfect distraction.

Usually Robin and Superboy never sparred together, for good reason. The bird was too experienced for someone like Conner, who was still relatively new to the scene, so he played too much with that fact. On the flip side, the alien could be unpredictable at times and no one wanted to permanently, accidentally injure the physically younger adolescent boy.

Even if Conner himself was technically, like, three.

Robin’s utility belt held something that looked like a pen, which actually grew into a full grown staff with a quick click.

Superboy had never, ever seen that new addition to his arsenal of military grade weapons... But he wouldn’t be scared of a little stick.

So that’s why when Robin hit him with it, he grabbed the thing and snapped the prototype staff in half.

**__ **

**_~~(Do what you gotta do, you don’t gotta explain it.)~~ _ **

 

Looking back, that was a bit much. He was just trying to test out a new tool. But he didn’t seem too bummed over it.

The next time Superboy hit Robin, he slid across the floor, and when he stood up, he smirked a little as blood dribbled down the corner of his lips in a way that looked too Joker-like to be okay.

Conner turned off the music in his ears, carefully telling the other, “We should stop.”

“Okay,” the bird smiles at him and there’s blood staining all his front teeth and dripping down into his carefully cupped hand. “GG, Supey.”

Superboy quirks a brow, glad that the other isn’t seriously hurt or at least mad at him. He really wasn’t some ordinary kid.

“GG?”

Robin makes his way to a closet, holding an array of first aid supplies. He grabs gauze and tissue, but doesn’t stuff them in his mouth yet, instead, gargling in a rather scandalized manner, “Seriously? You don’t know what ‘GG’ means?”

“With your habit of dropping prefixes,” Superboy reaches for a roll of bandage, “I figured it’d be a matter of time before you drop whole words too.”

“Good game, SB,” he runs off to the bathroom. “You’re mopping the blood!”

He says it too cheerfully to be acceptable.

 

**≠**

 

“What’s this?” M’gann started, feeling the harsher material of the bandage around the smooth skin of Superboy’s bicep. He didn’t change the shirt, so the unnatural opening was just begging for her attention. The bandage had an ugly red splat on it. “You got hurt?”

“Yeah. Robin and I were in the arena. It’ll heal in like, three days tops. Maybe four.”

“You sparred with Robin?” She asks incredulously, “No offense, but that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

She then smacked his arm. He hissed.

Robin came leaping over the couch to the kitchen where the two aliens were. “Contrary, Miss M, it was totally aster! I’ve never seen him spar with _you_ like that.”

“Am I supposed to be jealous of that?” She said flatly, deciding she would try a homestyle macaroni and cheese recipe today.

Superboy glared at her cookbook, made a funny face, and turned back to his side, chopping up bananas for his super manly man fruit-n-protein smoothie.

“Oh yeah,” there was a twinkle in the hero’s eye. “He’s been going easy on you the whole time. He wasn’t trying to kill me, but he definitely wasn’t going to just let me win or try to make everything a ‘learning opportunity,’” he put up dubious air quotes.

“You just like fights with no lessons,” she deduces. “Superboy hasn’t been going easy on me, right Supey?” She nudges him with her hip and looks at him with big, expressive eyes.

He doesn’t know if he should be scared or not. He hadn’t intentionally softened up on her but it was M’gann... _Megan._ He liked her too much, and found it hard to hurt her, especially for no reason.

Plus, she was one person who was objectively more powerful and experienced than him.

Superboy was a man, despite his title. He could admit defeat. Begrudgingly.

Then again, he can barely remember the last time he’s sparred one on one with M’gann anyway.

And he sure wasn’t listening to any appropriately aggressive rock-rap fusion either. Maybe that was a factor. But they won’t discuss that.

“Hello... Kon?” She snapped him back into reality, literally with a snap.

“Oh. No,” he rubs at his jaw, Robin had kicked him there too—that boy _kicks_ a lot— “I don’t think I’ve been going easy on anyone.”

“Well, you were fighting me almost like I was a criminal. It’s gonna make me stronger,” the sorta sidekick goads in an singsongy tone.

Superboy pours the strawberry-banana-blueberry-pineapple smoothie into a beer glass and chugs like the food compacting refrigerator he is. The bird, who was seated on a stool watching M’gann mix and match cheesy ingredients, looked at him with a partially astonished partially disgusted gaze. Conner just ruffles his hair, “Whatever floats your boat, man.”

When Conner left M’gann actually splutters a bit with her speech. “Do... Do you really think he’s been going easy on me? I’m strong,” she says, as if she was convincing herself.

“Trust me, Megan, we _all_ know you’re strong. I was just joking around. Kinda,” the boy cackles before hopping off the stool, ready to leave her to her own devices. “Also, that’s salt not cheese powder.”

“Huh? Oh...”

**≠**

 

One thing Conner actually hated with a passion was going to school.

He had enjoyed it at first, for obvious reasons like the human interaction and finally living the average American teen’s life. He wanted the _‘Hello Megan’_ of it all.

But, now, he realizes waking up at six in the morning for an American history class and some meh civilian kids, instead of kicking ass, was not it.

Unfortunately that’s what he gets for siding with Megan and her overly glamorized outlook on plain life.

Plus, he didn’t want CPS to get involved.

Again.

Lex had been trying everything in the book to get Conner into his full custody, stating that he was the biological father who had a dispute with Superboy’s nonexistent biological mother and ‘illegitimate foster father,’ Clark Kent. Superboy’s not the greatest fan of the Man of Steel by a long shot, but he’d much rather be under the lesser of two dickheads’ custody. He’ll be damned. In fact, he’s already damned, because Lex convinced the court to recognize him as Conner’s bio dad regardless of whose child he legally is.

So now that he had just barely managed to wiggle into Clark’s full custody—only so that he could continue his hero escapades in relative peace, not because he liked the guy—he had to go to school and have a pretty superb attendance record or else he’s off to the Luthor manor, or one of the other ones Lex owns. Once again, he’ll be damned. Those CPS people didn’t trust Clark Kent and his tiny apartment at all, and Conner feels like even if they knew he was one of the saviors of mankind, they’d still trying to book him under the guise of ‘child endangerment.’

Whatever.

At least M’gann and Dick would be at school with him.

 

**≠**

 

“I hate this with a fiery passion.” Dick complains, feeling uncomfortable wearing his regular clothes and fake-ass transition glasses at school. “But I love my friends so I’m at a crossroads. Ugh.”

He nearly rips the borrowed textbook in his hands in half.

Conner forgets, Dick was used to prep school, and even those he hated. But less, apparently.

“Relax, Dick,” M’gann said, assuming the full character of Megan with every rehearsed breath she took. “Another day, another dollar.”

“Except we don’t get paid, Meg,” he whines as they walk into the building amongst the crowd of teens. “I hate being a freshman.”

Conner chortles. “Then don’t be a freshman.”

“That’s not how things work, Supey,” the freshman chastises. “Maybe back home, though.”

Conner yawns, not feeling fatigued at all anymore, but playing it up for the act. The sun finally began to color the skies blue out of the orangey pink. “You were homeschooled at one point, yeah? No grades, no upperclassmen. So just don’t be a freshman.”

“It was easy to be homeschooled because I could ditch classes with Alfred with a viable excuse instead of having to fumble and fabricate a lie and worry about truant officers,” Dick paused melodramatically. “But I hated it. School in general is just... all dis no aster.”

The only reason they were in public school was so that they could skip classes easily to go crime fighting but still get that attendance.

“There it is,” Conner smirks. “I knew you would say that.”

First bell rang signaling that everyone had to get to their first period classes. In a strange twist of events and fuzzy scheduling, Dick, Megan, and Conner all had their first period American history class together. Granted, it was more advanced, suited for sixteen and seventeen year-old eleventh graders, making Dick the smallest in the class in all facets.

“This class is the most _horri_ of them all,” the bird points with his thumb, opening the door to be met with an overly enthused educator.

“Horri? Horrific? Horrifying?”

Conner feels accomplished when the other nods with a thumb up for his good guess.

Superboy is officially fluent in Robinese.

“Come on now, Richard, take those shades off.”

Okay, so, they weren’t transitions.  But Dick hated showing his eyes; he was so used to them being hidden behind a dark domino mask that the habit sort of bled into his civilian life as well. Even dressed down at Mount Justice, he wore the shades.

But, he reluctantly took them off here.

“Sorry, Mr. Nixon.” He said flatly, because they went through this every other day. Mr. Nixon knew he was not sorry. Just well-trained, polite.

They shuffled into their seats.

As the class resurrected from their zombie-like state, Mr. Nixon, ever the game changer, decides to toss the warm-up activity right through the door and jump into the lesson.

Conner was the only one who was unresponsive to this, while the rest of the class groans with beautiful teamwork and remarkable vigor. He was actually a little impressed at the hive mind teenagers develop when they all hate school as a collective.

He couldn’t care much about these lessons when he practically knew everything there was to know about everything there was to teach. So he whipped out his earphones, this time wired, and started shuffling through his workout playlist, just because he felt like it. Plus, he needed to hear a Maryland-native screaming about being the baddest bitch alive to keep his sanity, ironically enough.

One woman’s wrath is another man’s tranquility.

The only reason he couldn’t use his usual wireless earphones was because Robin and Red Tornado had constructed it custom-made for Superboy’s synthetic birthday; which was another thing Robin made up. He realized that they didn’t have a defined date for Superboy’s creation, let alone his sentient consciousness and awareness of being a living being, so he declared one day for Superboy appreciation, a synthetic birthday.

“Conner!”

The boy’s eyes snapped open. He was reminiscing again. He did that often in this class. Usually when it happened, the teacher would ask him a question to embarrass him or test if he was listening. But strangely enough, today was extra different.

“Conner, you’re in group two,” Mr. Nixon directs with a palm, “on the left side of the room.”

He looks to Megan, and she links the trio’s minds.

 _‘What’s going on?’_ He queries.

Megan makes a face, and then shrugs. _‘Don’t know, but he wants groups. He’s probably gonna make us discuss for a participation grade.’_

 _‘I don’t like talking,’_ Conner complained.

 _‘Second that,’_ Dick agrees, sounding stiff, even mentally.

 _‘Third,’_ Megan admitted before cutting off the link.

Megan and Conner ended up on the left side of the classroom and Dick ended up on the right. Everyone looks to the history guru, awaiting his instruction.

He claps, climactically, booming, “So, you all know how we’ve been talking about powerful leaders and pioneers in American society. Can somebody name a few?”

No one in class raised their hands so Conner coughed up, “John Rockefeller.”

“And who else?” The teacher beams, oddly looking like a healthy crackhead.

“Uhh... Thomas Edison? Theodore Roosevelt...” Conner added.

He’s surprised he didn’t mention the buds in his ears.

“Well, that’s right. Now, I know this is an American history course but all throughout history in every nation, we’ve seen how people have stepped up to the plate to fill positions of power and steer their societies  into a certain direction. In this age of technology and global connectivity, we’ve been exposed to more knowledge of things our ancestors would have thought to be witchcraft. We’ve seen men and women fly, people run laps around the globe, and even alien allies such as the Martian Manhunter.”

 

~~**_(I know I’m gonna make it, it’s so close I can taste it.)_ ** ~~

 

“I love that guy!” One dude admits, “He’s awesome.”

Megan’s cheeks become rosy because that was, in a way, a roundabout compliment to her as well.

“I do too.” Mr. Nixon continues, “We’ve seen how people go crazy with power, and with powers like these, I’d like to have an open debate. Given all the historical context, and the fact that some of these heroes are likely regular people that we may see in the grocery store, are you for or against these super beings? And how do you feel about the sidekicks and protégés? Does it resemble an absolute monarchy of people passing the power down to control the masses; going against the American dream? Or are they the embodiment of that dream? Do they seem more like cultural figureheads or straight-up deities? Explain your thoughts.”

That was... _heavy._

“Team 1, you’ll argue the affirmative, and Team 2, you’ll be the negative. No yelling, no insults, and no judging. Proceed.”

Megan turned on the link again only to share her panic. _‘How am I supposed to argue the negative? What! I was scammed.’_

Conner shrugs and decides that he’ll sit the debate out. Dick, however, likes a good argument, and looks like he’ll be having a field day this time around.

“Okay, first of all,” he starts, in his squeaky little voice that was only highlighted by the deeper voices of everybody surrounding him, “addressing that sidekick point you brought up... I don’t think they’re trying to control anyone. I think these people are genuinely trying to protect the places they love. I mean, they live there too. And they know there are more enemies out there than we can handle alone, so, why not?”

“The sidekicks are usually kids though. That’s child abuse. They don’t get to choose their own path or enjoy their youth because of the ‘altruistic’ adults in their life,” one girl off the negative side said. Conner just turned up his music. “That’s just like how royal families used to force their kids to take the throne at, like, thirteen or _three_ because the queen’s dead or something. There’s no free choice, just madness. That hero and sidekick thing’s just a look.”

“A look?” Dick scoffs with folded arms. “Those kids want to be out there. Half of them are metas who can take it anyway. If they didn’t want to fight crimes, they would’ve just quit. They have the ability and right to, just like everyone else.”

“Bet it’s not as easy as writing your resignation letter from Long John Silver’s on a square of toilet paper.” She retorts with a roll of her neck.

 

**≠**

 

“Yeah, so in conclusion, I hate school and the American school system can drown in a pit of radioactive goo for all I care,” Dick tells Wally. “Why don’t you have to go?” He pokes the speedster’s cheek.  

He was trying to eat a sandwich.

“Because,” he explains between bites, “I’ve got a boatload of credits. I can afford to skip. I’m still gonna graduate. But I do wish this whole vigilante thing counted as community service.”

“I bet Central truant officers think you’re a terri example for the kids.”

“Terrific?” The redhead asks.

“Terrifying,” M’gann corrects.

 

**≠**

 

“Okay, now remember, the object of this specific exercise isn’t to immobilize your opponent, but to snatch their object. Think of it as a top secret flash drive that shouldn’t be in the wrong hands.”

Wally blew a raspberry, tugging on his right leg as he stretched. “Black Canary, that’s such a cliché.”

“Hey, it’s a cliché ‘cause it happens.”

~~__ ~~

~~_**(How do you expect to learn anything when you talk more than listen?)** _ ~~

 

Both Wally and Conner were armed with nothing but their abilities and the props that they were protecting—Wally’s being one of the souvenirs and Conner’s being a ring in a box Kaldur’ahm had gifted him on his synthetic birthday.

Wally immediately used his speed to his advantage, which didn’t surprise Superboy at all. With the technique he hoped to apply, Wally would burn himself out with pure exhaustion  and it would be a ‘one and done’ deal.

Kid Flash circled around Conner for who knows how long before Conner actually feels the oxygen thinning out around him. He decided to jump up into the air to the beat of the song pumping in his brain, and he drops with the bass of the computer-generated percussion.

Superboy tries to stay close, because if he loses KF, he loses the game, and he doesn’t want that. So, as Kid Flash circles him, he moves around the ring within the ring, keeping an arm out to thump him mid-revolution.

It works, and Kid Flash falls back on his butt with a huffy grumble before he gets back up again and blocks Superboy from his item, hitting him with lightning fast quick punches in all the worst places.

Superboy’s arms feel like limp noodles for a hot minute, and he realizes that Kid Flash had been carefully hitting pressure points all over his body.

The smart move makes him mad, pisses him off. Why didn’t he think of that?

Even without his arms, his football physique and brick wall stature means that he can block Wally without even having to match his speed. He just had to stay close to guard his own object and keep Kid Flash away from his.

When Kid Flash’s fingers are _this_ close to grazing the small box, Conner kicks it, sliding it across the arena floor, acting on a whim, tossing his sane plan away for impulsivity instead.

Just in time for his arms to be useful again.

 

~~**_(They keep trying hard to get at me but I don’t think it’s stickin’.)_ ** ~~

 

Superboy comes at him with guns blazing, screaming and punching the other, grabbing at him, and forcing him to run. Both of Superboy’s fists become balled at once and raised over his head, and with the light shining over his head, making his silhouette seem even darker, Wally is remembering fighting The Superboy, who didn’t know the moon and desperately wanted to go see it. In a panic, Wally uses all his strength to punch Superboy multiple times in multiple places again, but it’s messier this time.

Superboy kicks the ring box in an opposite direction again, which makes KF’s face blanch.

Right when he was about to win!

Superboy smirks at Wally victoriously as he holds his wrists, knowing fully well that he can’t vibrate through his grip just yet. He’s glad because he has a feeling that’d feel really strange.

Superboy carefully picked up the trinket, and  dragged Wally by his arms over to Dinah, to gleefully declare his victory.

Superboy, usually the byronic type of guy, is uncharacteristically bubbly when he announces, “I won.”

 

**≠**

 

“No, no, no,” Wally clarifies, “he’s _different.”_

“Improvement is the result of good training. I do not understand the problem—”

“No, Kaldur. I nearly broke my own ankles in a training exercise! Never again!” The speedster bemoans. “The last time I felt that unprepared against him was Cadmus. He fights like a smarter version of the pre _-us_ Supey. He fights like a super weapon.”

“That’s...” Kaldur’ahm was actually rendered speechless for a moment, “a description.”

Robin cosigned everything Wally had been saying. “He’s kind of becoming a smart nutjob when he fights and I don’t totally hate it.”

“I hate it. He needs to save it for the field,” Wally frowns like a frumpy old lady.

“Smart nutjob fighters are the strongest. They get things done.” Robin shrugs. “I think it’s those earbuds I gave him. Or, just whatever he’s listening to. He’s been wearing them nonstop recently.”

“Does being the adopted son of the world’s greatest detective mean you notice everything?” Wally jeered.

“Yup. Just like how I saw Supey hold your hand and take you to Black Canary as if you were a bad kid who threw worms at people in pre-K.”

“Shut up,” Wally replies coldly. Dick just giggles.

“What has he been listening to?” Kaldur’ahm wonders aloud.

Artemis walks in on their conversation after eavesdropping for a short while because... she’s nosy, she’ll admit. “I dunno, but I wanna fight this nutjob Supes you’re talkin’ about.”

“He’d pulverize you,” Wally jibes.

Artemis runs a hand through her ponytail. “He _pulverized_ you.”

“Where is he now?” Kaldur’ahm asks, ignoring their banter.

“Probably getting all ooey-gooey lovey-dovey on M’gann.” Dick shuddered. “Romance is nasty.”

“Grow up,” KF chides, “There’s plenty of hot fish in the sea. You’re fourteen.”

“Which is exactly why I never need to hear the phrase ‘hot fish’ ever again. Weirdo.”

 

**≠**

 

Lo and behold, they were right. Superboy was about two minutes into a make out session with the Daughter of Mars herself.

Kaldur’ahm isn’t even shocked at the act, just the gall. “Anywhere but the living room. There are children present.”

“Hey!” Dick shouts off at the side, offended. “I said romance was nasty, not disgusting.”

“Don’t worry about it, I think romance is pretty gross, too. Especially with comrades,” Artemis shudders, but fist bumps the younger hero. “You know what they say about business and pleasure. They don’t mix.”

Dick blinks. “So you hate your job?”

“What? No!” Artemis sighs. “Whatever. Let me go mind my business then.”

She walks off, only to have Wally breeze past her, tugging at her thick ponytail in the process. There was an aggravated ‘ugh, Wally’ heard after that but it was so normal it faded in with the sounds of the refrigerator and TV running.

Wally swipes Conner’s phone off the counter. “Can I see your phone?” He asks, device in hand.

Conner and M’gann serve hims dumbfounded looks and Conner just shrugs slowly, “Well, uhm, I guess?”

“Great, y’all have fun being all kissy-kissy now,” Wally takes one of Conner’s thumbs and presses it to the scanner of the phone. “Buh-bye!” He dashes off to his room. in a flurry of red lightning. 

Conner didn’t have anything to hide, so once all the others left, he turned back to M’gann.

Innocently, he asks, all the while scooting closer, “Did that kill the mood?”

Pressing a finger to his lips, M’gann nodded, confirming, “Yes, that totally did kill the mood. Go kiss your boyfriend, lover boy.”

“My boyfriend just walked out of the room, and I want to kiss my beautiful girlfriend...” he teased, adding, _“Hello,_ Megan.”

“Ew,” she giggles, “Don’t ever!”

 

**≠**

 

Wally was admittedly just scrolling through the other’s text messages. For someone as antisocial and broody as Conner, he sure did fit into a bunch of group chats. He had ones of various titles, including class group chats from school. For example, _‘destined2fail x)’_ was a math group chat in which Conner provided homework answers once every blue moon. Wally also found out that Conner was in a group chat full of high school football players, despite not being a footballer himself. Weird. Then he found theirs—the boys—titled _‘robin’s brotherz </3’._ The Z represented their edginess.

So gen Z of them, right?

Anyway, that’s not why he went into the phone in the first place, so Wally quickly changed gears and found himself crawling through Superboy’s various playlists.

He’s come to learn two things.

Conner is really emo, one.

Two, all his music is either angry murder music or super lofi sad boy songs. There was no middle ground and there was no pop. Nothing off his list was mainstream so KF recognized literally none of the artists.

Like, a prime example... who the heck is R.ico Nasty?

She—he had figured after some googling—was all over his playlists, but she especially dominated his workout playlist, which had to be the one he was listening to when sparring because, damn, she was mad.

In a badass type of way, of course.

It makes too much sense that this girl helps him channel all his rage and weaponize it at just the right moments.

Still, Wally wonders how Conner even found this artist, because she’s from a small state off the edge of the east coast next to an even smaller state.

He’d have to ask.

 

**≠**

 

“How’d you find out about R.ico Nasty?” Wally hands the phone back to its rightful owner.

“Who?” Dick asks, tying the laces of his combat boots, before answering himself. “Is that who he’s been listening to?”

Conner and Wally both nod.

Conner openly explains, hand on the super symbol of strength on his shirt. “I found her by chance. It was during the whole custody battle situation with Superman and Lex Luthor... I really, _really_ wanted to pop Luthor’s head like a balloon when he started listing off reasons why Clark was unfit and how I was unsafe with him... because I was stressed and really wanted to stay under Superman’s custody to stay with you guys. You guys are my team. So I was looking for music to calm me down, but I found music that simultaneously did that and the opposite.”

“That’s an oxymoron... a contradiction,” Kaldur’ahm points out from behind him.

“Yeah. It is. But I feel empowered, exuberant, motivated, and angry as shit when I hear her words,” Conner retells. “It clears my head so that I can focus on what’s right in front of me.”

“Like a fight?” Kaldur asks, leaning on the wall.

Conner nods. “Like a _brawl.”_

“Yo, what’s the range on those earphones because he can jump like thirty feet in the air and it seems like there’s no problem with the sound at all!” Wally exclaims. “He vibrated the whole ground floor when he fought me and his head was bobbing the whole time!”

“It’s true, I was there, I was the floor,” Artemis jokes with a limply raised hand.

“Shut up, Arty!”

“You shut up, Kid.”

They narrow eyes at each other and glare childishly.

 

**≠**

 

When Conner was hooked up to a helmet that read his brain activity while simultaneously listening to the fighting music raging in his ears and brawling with his insanely hot boyfriend, he kind of just lost himself in the situation.

He dodged attacks from aqua swords and bludgeons and had used a double palm strike to knock Kaldur’ahm back a few feet, which gave them a little more distance for them to inevitably charge at each other.

The rest of the team watched too, yet still don’t know who won.

“How did either of them stay whelmed through all of that?” Dick had asked incredulously.

Kaldur’ahm wanted to break even at a tie, but Conner thinks he won that fair and square.

Still, they both come out of it pretty messed up. But it was nothing the infirmary couldn’t handle.

 

**≠**

 

Once they had the results of Conner’s brain scan, everybody actively participated in pretending to have peak neuro scientific knowledge.

However, Robin and Kid Flash knew a thing or two about reading wiggly, squiggly lines.

“Okay, I know that’s the amygdala,” Wally points a gloved finger, “so that means his entire limbic system goes ape once he hears the voice of this artist.”

“His what system?” Artemis asks.

Wally never noticed before, but her voice was raspy just like the rapper’s. It wasn’t the exact same voice but Wally made sure to be on the lookout for how many raspy-voice women he knew, ‘cause even Dinah’s was a little gritty. Huh.

“It’s the emotional center of your brain. Controls quick moods like being hangry or emotional instincts, like... a parent saving their child because of love.”

“Hmm.”

“What do her songs make you think of doing, Kon?” Dick asked. “Like _really?_ Because she makes you go all ‘Hulk Smash’ once you hear it in a fight setting.”

Conner shrugs. Hulk was fiction; his punches were not.

“It makes me want to punch a series of brick walls or do a happy dance. Mostly both at the same time.”

“Well, how about you listen to her every time we have to fight Icicle Junior,” Wally claps his hands together with a wide grin. “He’s annoying.”

“Icicle doesn’t deserve all that.” M’gann states.

“That is unnecessary brutality.” Kaldur’ahm agrees.

“Lemme hear her!” Robin requested. One minute into a song he winces, more out of shock than dislike, “She’s aggro. Makes sense why you like her.”

Wally cackles. “Finally! A shortened word I can immediately understand.”

 

**≠**

 

It was nighttime in the cave, and the team was making it back from a mentally and physically taxing mission, stopping a raid.

“Goodnight, guys,” M’gann had yawned, before floating over to Supey and kissing his cheek, then floating down the corridor to her room. 

She didn’t need sleep, but she had become so used to the act that it was a force of habit for her; and habits were hard to break.

Conner didn’t feel like sleeping alone that night so when everyone parted ways to their rooms, he found himself at Kaldur’s door jamb.

“You didn’t shower,” Kaldur’ahm says, drowsily.

“No one did, we’re all gonna smell like soot as a _team,”_ Conner whispers, crawling into the other’s big bed and wrapping an arm around the other. He could hear his steady heartbeat clearly, and the rhythmic sound lulled him to sleep. His last words before he was fully out would have been hilarious had they not felt half-dead. “I still won that fight...” he mumbles.

 


End file.
